NY attorney general sues NYPD, seeks independent monitor over racial justice protest crackdown
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New York Attorney General Letitia James sued the NYPD over their response to May and June racial justice protests. AP Photo/Mary Altaffer
By David Brand
New York Attorney General Letitia James on Thursday sued the NYPD and demanded a federal monitor be put in place to oversee the department after their aggressive and disordered response to springtime racial justice protests led to excessive use of force and wrongful arrests.
James filed the lawsuit in Manhattan federal court after her office said it investigated several civil rights abuses by officers during Black Lives Matter protests in the wake of the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis. In the lawsuit, James charged the NYPD, Mayor Bill de Blasio and Police Commissioner Dermot Shea with a “pattern of responding to racial justice and related protests with gratuitous force.”
The state seeks to “end the pervasive use of excessive force and false arrests by the New York City Police Department (NYPD) against New Yorkers in suppressing overwhelmingly peaceful protests,” according to the complaint.
James cited the arrests of legal observers, medics and other essential workers without probable cause and the use of the strategy known as “kettling” to surround and arrest large groups of demonstrators in June 2020.
“The unlawful policing practices officers engaged in at these protests are not new,” the lawsuit states. “Instead, they are the latest manifestation of the NYPD’s unconstitutional policing practices.”
PLAINTIFF JARRETT PAYNE OF ROCKAWAY BEACH SAID HE WAS BEATEN BY OFFICERS WITH BATONS WHILE PEACEFULLY PROTESTING POLICE VIOLENCE ON JUNE 2. PHOTO COURTESY OF LEGAL AID
“For at least the last two decades, the NYPD has engaged in the same unlawful excessive force and false arrest practices while policing large-scale protests,” the complaint continues. “This misconduct is widely documented in prior lawsuits, complaints, and reports.”
In late May and early June, tens of thousands of New Yorkers participated in overwhelmingly peaceful demonstrations to demand an end to racist police violence against Black New Yorkers, funding cuts for the NYPD and the enactment of various police reform measures.
Late-night looting incidents spurred a crackdown by officers, exacerbated by de Blasio’s decision to impose an 8 p.m citywide curfew. Many demonstrators and passersby caught up in the sweep were arrested for allegedly violating the curfew.
“There is no question that the NYPD engaged in a pattern of excessive, brutal, and unlawful force against peaceful protesters,” James said in a statement. “With today’s lawsuit, this long-standing pattern of brutal and illegal force ends. No one is above the law — not even the individuals charged with enforcing it.”
Queens was the scene of nightly demonstrations but was mostly spared the aggressive policing pervasive in the Bronx, Brooklyn and Manhattan during more than two weeks of protests. Dozens of people kettled and arrested in the Bronx were sent to Queens Central Booking June 4.
James teased the lawsuit as a “major announcement” the night before it was filed. Mayor Bill de Blasio did not hold his routine press briefing Thursday morning.
In a statement on Twitter, the NYPD wrote that it “welcomes reform and has embraced the recent suggestions by both the city's Department of Investigation and the city's Law Department.”
“As the Mayor has said, adding another layer does not speed up the process of continued reform, which we have embraced and led the way on,” the NYPD added.
Civil rights groups have already sued the NYPD for brutality.
One plaintiff who spoke with the Eagle in October said he was marching peacefully near the back of a demonstration when police “blindsided” him and smashed his face against a bench.
The man, Rockaway Beach resident Jarrett Payne, said he thought about the similarities between himself and Floyd, who died under the knee of a Minneapolis cop while two other officers pinned him to the ground.
“The only difference is they weren’t sitting on my neck,” Payne told the Eagle. “At the end of the day, that’s more reason why I have to be out there.”
